


The Divine and Profane

by cartographicalspine



Series: The Meek [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drama, Explosions, Gen, Magical Accidents, Major Character Injury, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 17:03:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12916329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographicalspine/pseuds/cartographicalspine
Summary: Blackwall enhances the holy Herald of Andraste experience.





	The Divine and Profane

From his vantage point next to the smithy, Blackwall watches the comings and goings of the blacksmith’s day. Three new sets of armor for Lady Trevelyan’s recruits: human, elf, and a Qunari, of all things. One of the apprentices is out sick, and two others cannot work with the fractures in a dented chestpiece. The new supplies are late. Harritt stresses and wrangles the shop back into working order. Half the apprentices on the new armor, the others on his old projects. A Tranquil is sent down to soothe out the fractured enchantment so Harritt can finish repairs.

Dusk eventually finds the late shipment at their front door, for lack of a better word. The Herald has inserted himself into the work; something about the hammer strokes must draw him, because there’s no real reason for their organization’s holy figure to dirty his hands otherwise. He’s a common enough fixture in the smithy these days anyway. Blackwall doesn’t think much of it.

Harritt probably saw the brand and instinct took the rest. Heavy armor switches hands seamlessly, heavy enchantments crackling beneath them. A prickle along his back and neck, a warning he doesn’t recognize until too late, but he never quite understood Lady Trevelyan’s explanations during their talks. He doesn’t make the connection.

There’s a strange buzzing in the air, different than other days. Then, before the break, he swears he almost hears something sing beneath the hammer...the metal?

A cruel, keening crescent of blue light, backlash from the armor’s enchantment. There’s a scream.

For a second, the world is pure white...and then Blackwall is on his feet and trying to make out sounds and footsteps alike. Because the armor splitting sounded almost like a wail that could only come from a beast as large as a giant and his ears are throbbing, bleeding and he really hopes he’s just imagining this.

Harritt’s against the wall, whey-faced and staring helplessly at the Herald’s gesturing, at his whisper-light orders and his increasingly insistent tone as he struggles to remain upright. It’s a losing battle; the Herald is already on his knees.

There is so much red seeping down the boy’s robes.

Blackwall makes out the words armor, heat, and unstable and rushes past Harritt, who’s still in shock, to get the steaming heap of metal off the forge. He flings it far out into the snow, not feeling the burns until much later, and then turns to the flames still casting out sparks and blue light. But the Herald steps forward; no one knows how he manages on such jittery, jumbled footsteps but he has pushed Blackwall back. He raises his hands and twists and wrenches the very air, and the flames are choked out in an instant.

Then, with the forge dead and quiet, he topples again.

Blackwall knows assessing battle wounds in the middle of chaos, but here there is only a low buzzing sound and a forge accident. Not just a forge, he thinks, moving his hand over the ruined robes; his fingers dip into a pulpy mess. This is the Herald. Fuck, this is Lady Marlise’s little cousin.

(He forgets to correct her name to Trevelyan.)

Harritt’s come back to himself, screaming at “Ailmar” or “Caesy” or some other to get that Hinterlands healer already, and then throws himself down next to Blackwall with blankets he’s tearing into makeshift bandages.

The Herald shoves their hands away, the pressure they’re trying to keep on his chest, and pants, “N-not E-E-Ellen-d-dra, A-A-Adan. Luh-lyrium...m-magic wuh-worse…”

His eyes widen and he groans. “M-my m-magic…o-of c-c-course…”

Blackwall ups the pressure again and shushes him. “Get them both,” he calls over his shoulder at the retreating apprentices. “Maker’s balls, this is deep. Shhh, let me see.”

The Herald thrashes violently, and he and Harritt pull back a little until the shudders subside. He’s looking greyer by the second, and the wound is burning with heat and blood. Whatever happened to the lyrium, it's created a downright bloody disaster here.

Harritt is white with anger and horror. “I killed the Herald of Andraste. Fuck if someone doesn’t have it out for me after all.”

“N-not d-dead y-y-yet,” the Herald wheezes, seizing up again in Blackwall’s arms. “Th-that’s suh-still a th-thing…...u-ugh can’t th-th-think w-w-words…”

“Try fuck,” Blackwall jokes weakly, praying for anything to keep the boy’s mind clear and alert. If he falls unconscious, he’s not sure anything will wake him ever again. “It’s a good thinking word.”

His brow scrunches up as he tries it out, tasting it in his mouth. “F-f-fuck. Fuck, that hurts. I l-l-luh-like this w-word…”

“Of course.” Blackwall gives a whisper of a laugh, no longer thinking of just Lady Marlise but of the boy shiver-shiver-shivering in his lap. “Sure, that’s a good lad.”

“F-f-fuck that,” the Herald snaps, stuttering through half his words and whisper-coughing the other half. “Not a child, Fuckwall. Fuckity fuck, don’t ever say that.”

Harritt laughs a little too high for his voice. “You taught the Herald to swear. You shitting taught Andraste’s fucking Prophet to fucking swear.”

“Easy, Harritt,” Blackwall says, heartened by the mischievous light in the Herald’s eyes. “We’re getting through it.”

Lady Marlise and her entourage arrive not long afterward, after he’s had the time to go through his cherished reserve of profanities for the Herald’s delight, strings of words he would not have expected to use in a quasi-religious organization. Harritt has pitched in as well before the end, seeming to recover from the explosion and its aftermath. As the council numbly begins to take stock of the damage, the Herald of Andraste throws his head back and lets loose a blistering volley of curses that could have set the forge afire again if he’d so been inclined.

Lady Marlise stares at them, horrified in so many different ways that Blackwall doesn’t know whether to feel sympathy or amusement.

“A-about g-g-goddamn time,” the Herald says, tearing his gaze from his own bloody fingerprints on Blackwall’s chestplate. “H-holy swears, r-right h-h-here. Shit’s blessed by Andraste herself.”

“Language,” she says hoarsely, looking like she’d fall over if Cassandra wasn’t gripping her arm.

“M-muh-Marlise, I am n-never going to s-stop fucking swearing e-e-ever again.”

Adan sways and stumbles into a shell-shocked Ellendra. “What the-”

“Fuck,” the Herald says serenely and passes out.

Blackwall feels, should all of them make it through the night, that he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do later. Still, if the Herald ever manages to grace his devoted disciples with his new vocabulary again, he would consider it nothing short of a miracle that anyone should be less than grateful that he does. Who wouldn’t want to be cursed at by a divine being sent straight from Andraste’s side?

….Maker, Lady Marlise is never going to forgive him. Balls.


End file.
